Nov. 12, 2008

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EASTCONN Tech Council Minutes for November 13, 2008

Art Skerker's Visit
Jane will ask Art tomorrow when she sees him at the RESC TECH Alliance Meeting.

CEN Blocking
  • From Art Skerker's Blog: On November 5th, a letter was mailed to superintendents detailing the new CEN filtration policy. There will soon be two levels of filtration available to districts. If you do nothing, the existing default level will remain. Or, if you decide to control your level of filtration, you may do so with the only the pornography area closed.
  • Tech Council members have different information on when wildcards will work. The CEN filter

K-12 Online Conference
Two weeks of online conferences are available and archived through 2006. These can be viewed at http://k12onlineconference.org/.

NECC
Conference is in Washington DC this year in June.

CECA
Check out the wikispace that Steve created for the CECA conference, http://ceca08.wikispaces.com. Add any comments and notes that you wish to share.

Tech Integration
  • How well can students multi-task? Do we as educators "control" the environment or do we work with students on appropriate behaviors? And what is considered appropriate?
  • Spice It Up a Notch! is an example of an educational wikispace developed by Donna Drasch and Rebecca Pilver. View the space at http://nutmeg2009.sblc.wikispaces.net. This is an excellent example of tech integration in Language Arts for grades 4-8.
  • Jane created a http://cttechintegration.wikispaces.com for sharing tech integration ideas. Currently has EASTCONN's 2007-2008 Successful Practices posted. Jane will encourage other RESCs to post their Successful Practices. The goal is to upload the work from past years as well. Jane welcomes contributions related to Tech Integration and beyond the Successful Practices. EASTCONN and the other RESCs are always looking for good projects to include in Successful Practices.
  • Bill shared RHAMs Moodle web site. Moodle is a free open-source course management system. RHAM hosted Moodle on HostMonster for $75 per year, but there are other hosts or you can purchase a server. Bill is encouraging teachers to put homework, quizzes, assignments, etc. on the site. Bill has found the process user-friendly for the staff. Check it out at http://www.reg8k12ctus.org/moodle -- you can sign in as a guest or email Bill (blockwill@reg8.k12.ct.us) and he will give you a username and password to a good example. Different teachers have used the Moodle features in various ways, some only post assignments and others have students writing wikis and glossary definitions. HostMonster will provide the Moodle and unlimited space!
  • Joomla and Drupa are content managers. Jan shared that E.O. Smith is using Joomla (open-source) for web site, but the content manager features are not intuitive. They used designers to create the site template for about $3,000. It is a data base. The hope is that Joomla's features will be easier in the future and the newer version will be more intuitive. Joomla does not host so your school will need to host the site.
  • Jing is a screen capture program at http://www.jingproject.com.